U.S.A.’S HUGE STOCKS OF GOLD

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 154, 25 March 1939, Page 11

U.S.A.’S HUGE STOCKS OF GOLD

Continued Inflow No Cause For Alarm (Received March 24, 6.30‘ p.m.) WASHINGTON, March 23. The secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Morgeuthau, in a 25-page letter in reply to the Semite Banking Committee’s request for an exposition of the American position on the gold question, said “there need not be any fear that the metal, of which the United States now holds over 15,000,000,000 dollars, or more than half the world’s monetary stock, will cease to be the standard of value in international exchange, thus leaving the United States caught.”

Mr. Morgeuthau said that the United States was likely to receive approximately one billion dollars of gold yearly from abroad till conditions settle, but that the inflow need not worry America. Recovery, be said, was the only cure for the gold flow, and international recovery was the only means of correcting the maldistribution of the world’s gold. He insisted that the President's power to change the value of tiie dollar was essential to national security. The old monetary concepts no longer were tenable and it would be ruinous to return to the old pre-new deal valuation.

U.S.-CZECH TREATY SUSPENDED German Occupation Only De Facto (Received March 21, 11.30 p.m.) WASHINGTON, Marell 21. President Roosevelt today proclaimed the suspension of the reciprocal trade agreement with Czechoslovakia, beginning on April 22. The treaty could be restored by another proclamation. Ollieials emphasized that, today’s action again stressed the United States's viewpoint that the German occupation of Czechoslovakia was only de facto and temporary.